Posts Tagged ‘flower power’

.
Few weeks ago I participated at a group exhibition Flower Power in Kallio Kunsthalle in Helsinki. The director and founder of the gallery is Petri Saarikko with whom we were working together at Fabrica, the research center of communication of United Colors of Benetton. We were there in years 2000/01. I’ve made this short video about the documentation of the exhibition. I hope you will like it. The gallery is known for it’s non-mainstream exhibitions and it’s alternative representations of artwork. I’m saying they are post-postmodern gallery.

In fact I had two exhibition. Beside the one in the kunsthalle, the second was more candid. Petri printed my Great Depression pictures and we pin them on their pinboard and put them the window of Elokolo. Elokolo is an organisation that among other things also offers support to people who became unemployed. In the morning when they are offering free meal, they invited me to give a speech about my work, highlighting Great Depression project.

I had a lovely time in Helsinki. I met Tarmo, the main wet plate president from Estonia. In Helsinki we did a crash course on wet plate negative and salt printing. I tell you, wet plate negative is going to be the new topshit thing! Tintypes are so tenties…

After my postgraduate studies in London I got my first child and I came back home, build a house and got my second child. It was brilliant decision, to establish family while being young, but I must admit that career wise I got stuck. And when you get stuck in a stuck country like Slovenia, then you feel like an oversized solid shit that can not get through.

Nevertheless this current recession brought me to a liberating thought. All jobs are paid next thing to nothing, so why not get paid next thing to nothing, for something that I’m crazy passionate and addicted to, that’s photography! My idea of photography!

My ideal medium for photography is a book. I love making books. I handmade more then dozen two dozens books. I decided that I’ll raise a stake on my art career and drop in the party through the back door. I will make a book on my best project Flower Power! Next week I’m getting an advice from Klavdij Sluban on that. The man won European Publishers Award for Photography in 2009, so I’ll get the best guidance I can! In August I’m making a promo video about it. Then I’ll launch it through Kickstarter and by November the book should be on your table!

For those who don’t know the Flower Power project, here’s a short sinopsis. Flower Power series is a personal rebellion against politics and news-photojournalistic-safaris dictated by well oiled public relation machine. In my images I’m instead of glorifying politicians, focusing on plants and degrading politicians on disturbing backgrounds. Here are some recent Flower Power images that I haven’t publish them yet, the best off collection you can see on my site.

May the Flower Power be with me and you!

A bouquet of white roses at the receiption of Anže Kopitar after winning Stanly Cup with LA Kings. Ljubljana airport, Slovenia .

A bouquet of white roses with Anže Kopitar and fans. Ljubljana Airport, Slovenia.

To keep my promise to post pics more regulary, here is a picture that I’ve shot few hours ago. It’s taken when Anže Kopitar famous hockey player that won with LA Kings the Stanly Cup. Picture belongs to my Flower Power series, where I document flowers on news events in a way that I don’t celebrate politician or a famous person, but I focus on a flower and the famous person on the picture is degraded to a disturbing background. If you don’t see the concept in this picture, please take a look on my site where Flower power project contains flowers with Putin, Bush, DalaiLama, Mubarak, Merkel, Powel, Jnaša, Drnovšek, Turk,…

PS: Actually the picture above is straight from the camera. Here is a bit fine tuned version.

Last two weeks there was a lot of stuff happening with such intensity that I didn’t had time to blog about it. So, Flower Power exhibition in Sokolski dom, Škofja Loka was a success, exhibition looks great. I exhibited 35 images and it works really well if they are many images together. If it would be just a single or just few images, it would be a gag, but all together works really well, raising issues of news making, objectivity, spin public relation,…
The exhibition is open until 7th of March 2012. Here is a video about the project if you haven’t see it yet.

I’m inviting you to the opening of my show on Friday 3rd of February 2012 in Sokolski dom in Škofja Loka, Slovenia.
About the project:
As a photojournalist for the weekly Mladina I have been daily photographing press conferences, politicians’ handshakes, and other “flash for cash” photo opportunities. At a certain point I became frustrated with these news-safaris, where the press officer in charge determines my and other photographers’ view angle, the timing and the expression of the politician(s). Searching for an approach that would motivate me personally, I decided to document the flower arrangements accompanying such public functions. At every event I thus also take a personal picture in addition to the usual news images, a picture that is out of the pre-set context. Instead of glorifying some important politician, it sets flowers in focus, thus degrading the politician to unsharp background that distracts the composition. The cure works perfectly and now I look forward to every press conference, no matter how trivial it is.
I have been working on this project for over six years now. With my Flower Power bouquets I have captured also world leaders, such as George Bush, Ban Ki-moon, Romano Prodi, Angela Merkel, DalajLama, Vladimir Putin and others. Let me quote Marcel Štefančič who commented the series: “A hundred years from now no one will know who these politicians were, what their names were, but everyone will still know what these flowers are called. That’s it – Flower Power.”
Portfolio on my site www.borutpeterlin.com

Regular readers of my blog know well my Flower Power project that is a personal rebellion against politics and news-photojournalistic-safaris. Instead glorifying politicians I’m focusing on plants and degrading politicians on disturbing background. It was exhibited on 6th U3 Slovenian art triennial in Gallery of Modern Art in Ljubljana, which I consider a Rock and Roll achievement. Yesterday Vladimir Putin was visiting Slovenia and I’ve made this pictures of beautiful plants. I hope you will enjoy it and let Flower Power be with you.